Reaper (29 page)

“See, I think you're lying. I heard it through the grapevine that you started asking permission to do your little light show, sending spirits on. If a ghostie wants to go, you send ’em, otherwise all is copasetic to you. Is that right?”

Wendy shifted. “Maybe.”

“You feeling shy?”

“No!” Wendy flushed. “It's just…I guess I'm not supposed to ask permission first? I don't know. Everyone's telling me something different and I never got the training I was supposed to get. I'm winging it!”

“Yeah, well just between you and me, I think asking a lady I just met for permission to do the backseat tango is a far sight better than just diving in and seeing how she takes it.” The greaser shrugged. “Maybe it's how I was raised, I don't know.” He glanced slyly at Wendy from beneath shuttered lashes. “You get my drift?”

“I do.”

“Grand!” He rubbed his hands together. “Now Elise, she doesn't exactly have the same eye-to-eye on the subject that you and I share. Permission, and all, I mean.”

“No Reaper other than me asks the dead if they can reap them,” Wendy pointed out stiffly.

“This goes way beyond asking for permission before sending a soul into the great beyond, Red. Elise ran one hell of a racket while she was in charge. Ultimately she knew that all ghosties, spirits, and whatnot had to be sent along their merry way to the Light, but there was
nothing
in the rules that said
when
she had to do that little deed. So she often wouldn't send ’em on when she had the chance.”

“What?” Confused, Wendy shifted carefully forward. “But if she had a ghost right there, why wouldn't she?”

“Why would a bank be a little sad that they got all their principal back in a few months rather than a few years?”

“Uh, because they profit off of the inter—oooohhh. I get it. She was blackmailing them?” Wendy thought of Elise's shiny rings, her smooth hair, Emma's nice car, and frowned. She knew that a lot of the Reapers got jobs that positioned them near the dead—doctors and undertakers and the like—but would even a doctor's salary pay for all the amenities she'd seen them casually using so far?

“Give the girl a cookie! The lucky ones, the powerful spirits, yeah, you betcha, blackmail city. Elise'd threaten to send a posse of Reapers to clean out a nest of the dead if we didn't pay up.”

Confused, Wendy rubbed her forehead. “That makes no sense though. How're you supposed to pay anything that'd be worthwhile to the Reapers? All you have is salvage, right?”

“Do nasty little errands for her—spy on the living, say, if you weren't all that talented moving essence or ether around, or sometimes an outright haunting of a guy if you could reach into the living world. That fancy house up San Ramon way used to be a prime plot of land in the 60s. That is, until she convinced a few folks to move out of their ‘obviously cursed’ house. Paid them pennies on the dollar, if I'm remembering right.”

“That's…that's…”

“One of the mildest things she's done.” The greaser scratched his chin. “And if you had a disliking for doing her dirty work, Elise had other ways to make your afterlife a living hell. She didn't like a clean reap. Too fast and not enough word-of-mouth to further her little agenda.” He sighed, rubbed his chin, and Wendy could hear the scrape of his palm against his stubble. “No, Elise, she wouldn't reap unless she absolutely had to.”

“So what'd she do then?”

“Torture, for one, or if she was feeling curious, experiments. Sometimes worse. For example, that little trick the White Lady had of breathing flesh right back onto a Walker? Elise taught her how to
do that. She could also do the opposite, and strip a regular soul down to their bare bones with only a cord left, make other folks think that they were a Walker when they were nothing of the sort.”

Wendy glanced at the Walker standing still and silent at the edge of the parking lot. The greaser, spotting her gaze, shook his head.

“Oh, no, Red. She's a Walker, but there's more to that story than we've got time to talk about today. Let's just leave it at the little fact that the Never is just as complicated a place as the living lands, and just because a person's walking around without any skin doesn't make them pure unadulterated evil, you dig?”

“I just don't get how anyone would want to cannibalize—”

“No, you don't. Look, Red, that's what I've been trying to get across to you. The Never is a
complex
place and you Reapers, even the good ones who let a spirit go out with dignity, you just rage your way through it like a whole clan of bulls in a china shop.”

“Hey!”

“I'm not wrong though, am I? And when Elise was in charge the whole Never was a-quiver. A few souls were just so afraid of being stripped down and tortured, or used, so frightened of winking out like a crazy Shade, or entering the Light and facing whatever awful crap they did while they were alive, that they clung to whatever possible reason they could to stay in the Never. Even if it went against everything they thought they were or ever could be. Humans are survivors, Red. Even after we're already dead.”

Despite herself, Wendy thought of the Donner party and shivered. “I guess you're right.”

“Of course I am. Now, the ones that got me are those Walkers that went through hell and back to keep on going—those ones that ate the babies just to survive—but under Elise's rule they figured out the only way to keep on keeping on was to turn themselves in.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ever wonder why the Walkers flocked to the White Lady so quickly and stuck around despite the fact that she occasionally mutilated
them instead of healing them? It wasn't just because she could mend them up, Red. They knew her before. Like I said, not all Walkers are 100 percent bona-fide evil, and while Mary pitied and loathed them, even she had to admit that they could make themselves useful every now and then.”

He jerked a thumb at the Walker at the edge of the woods. “Properly motivated, that is.”

“Mom wouldn't—”

“Wouldn't she? The thing is, if you can get them to work together, Walkers are an unstoppable force, an angry unsleeping army. Mary knew that. How do you think she got the Council to agree to a truce in the first place? How do you think Elise gave up her death-grip—pardon the pun—on the Bay Area?”

“I was told that Mom was able to prove that she could take care of the Bay Area by herself, so they packed up for locations that needed them more.”

“It's nice to believe in fairy tales. Personally I always like the one about the fox and the grapes, myself. I think Elise might have been acquainted with that one, too.”

“That's a parable, not a fairy tale,” Wendy said distantly, but she got the point. “You're telling me that Mom used Walkers—
Walkers
—to make my family move out.”

“One thing they told you was true: they weren't needed here if Mary could keep damn near most of Northern California clean by herself. She had the Walkers and the Council round up all the spirits from Santa Rosa to Salinas and had them hidden.”

“Even the Riders and Lost?”

He snorted. “One thing I'll say for your boy Piotr, Red, back in his day he taught every single Rider to be a sneaky son of a bitch. No, they couldn't find hide nor hair of the Riders or Lost to bother rounding them up. Probably for the best, to be honest. I don't think the Walkers would have kept in line if faced with so much fresh essence. I bet Mary didn't have them looking too hard at all.”

“So even if Mom had the whole place on lockdown, why would the other Reapers leave?”

“Smart girl! Mary sent the Walkers further out, like bait. She had them rage around a bit in cities back east and in the midwest. The Reapers got wind of the chaos and followed, and the Walkers, most of them at least, came back here.”

“So you're telling me that after Elise left, everyone lived together for years in relative harmony,” Wendy drawled slowly. “Candy corn and sweetness all around.”

“Now you've got with it! But then you, little Miss Lightbringer, came along and mucked it all up.”

“Excuse me! How did I mess anything up?”

He tapped her watch. “That, my dear, is a story for another day. My ten minutes are up and, frankly, I'm tired of flapping my jaw.”

As he stepped through the car, Wendy tried to grab his wrist, but he was too quick for her. “Why did you tell me all this?”

“Are you writing a book, doll? I'm done. It's late and I need to hit the road. Miles to go and all that.”

“Please. You dragged me all the way out here. Finish it.” Inspiration hit. “I mean, if you're gonna drag me out here to this passion pit just to rattle my cage, you're a real…um…hep cat?”

The greaser guffawed broadly. “Nosebleed, dear. I'm a real nosebleed,” he corrected, rolling his eyes playfully. “Fine, fine, I'll answer your questions. Let's put it this way: with Elise gone, a whole bunch of scared spirits realized that they never wanted to be forced into a situation like that again. So we waited, we watched, and we learned. We knew it was a matter of time before something happened to Miss Clever Mary and your family got wind that maybe you weren't up to snuff. So we made plans.”

“When you say ‘we’…”

“The Council. The dead. Maybe just plain old everyday Joe ghosts who're tired of being pushed around. It doesn't matter, the important part is that the dead don't want the wrong sort of Reapers
in this town. Thanks to you and your mother, we know how to hurt your kind, and thanks to some truly amazing minds like Madame Ada, we've got the poison to do it.”

The greaser snapped his fingers and the Walker approached. It drew a long, thin bone dagger from its cloak and laid it in the greaser's palm.

“If you don't take care of your family,” the greaser said, handing the dagger to Wendy, “we will. What went around, comes around, you dig? This is about to be war, a war no one wants, and right now you're the only one who's got any interest in stopping it.” He patted the car door twice. “Good luck.”

Wendy's hand curled around the dagger…

…and she was in a dark room, underground, shelves piled high with shadowy objects—vases and knives, busts and books—with a cool breeze blowing around her ankles. The only light was flickering candlelight from a chandelier high above. White wax dripped down, splattering the floor, and Wendy's chest ached. Her eyes were beginning to dry out in their sockets once again.

She was still running a fever, Wendy realized. Her living body was still burning up even though she was safe within her dreams.

“Oh Winifred, back so soon? You really can't take a hint can you? Little idiot,” Emma said, suddenly shoving her from behind. Wendy staggered against the closest stack of books. They toppled to the floor with a dry
whoomp
, sending up a great gust of dust and debris. “I thought I told you to walk away.”

“You did,” Wendy said, turning to watch the redhead hovering just outside the range of light. Emma was dressed in a long grey robe, her feet were bare and scabbed, and her toes were covered with dirt. A red weal marred her neck in a thin line; it oozed over her collarbone and dripped bright blood down the front of the robe.

“I didn't listen,” Wendy said, frowning at the blood. What had happened there? What was going on?

“Obviously,” Emma sneered. She leaned forward, her long braid
dipping down, and Wendy was tempted to grab the braid and yank Emma's face into her knee, possibly breaking that perfect nose.

“Winifred the weak,” Emma said, slowly stalking a circle around Wendy, leaning forward and back, her face drifting in and out of the shadows. “Winifred the whiny. Can't hack a binding for even a day, could you? Went running to Jane at the first sign of discomfort.”

“So I failed your frickin’ test, so sue me,” Wendy spat, turning to keep Emma in her line of sight. “It was a stupid test anyway.”

“Was it? Was it a test?” Emma's hand shot out of the darkness and Wendy batted it aside, her side yelling at the sudden movement. “Or was it a way to get rid of you?”

“You're a doctor. I'm sure you know a hundred ways to get rid of a person without anyone finding out,” Wendy retorted, troubled. The way Emma was moving was strange; after their sparring this morning, Wendy was fairly sure she had a bead on how Emma fought, which was mostly comprised of straightforward, quicksilver attacks. This slow, sinuous slide was not like Emma at all.

And…and…Wendy struggled to remember the moments before she'd woken up in the greaser's car. Hadn't she, in her delirium, called Emma on the cell?

Hadn't Emma been trying to…help her?

“Winifred, alas, you assume so many things.” Again the darting attack and again Wendy slapped the jab aside.

“Where'd you get that cloak?” Wendy asked pointedly. “You're not a cloak type last I checked.”

“Standard issue Reaper attire,” Emma retorted. “Not that you'll ever receive one.”

“If that's the usual, I think I'm good,” Wendy replied, unease twisting in her gut.

Where were Emma's tattoos? Emma had tattoos on her shins before, didn't she? She'd been sitting in the living room, settled on that long couch, and her robe had slipped open. Eddie had tried not
to stare but her legs really were very nice…and there'd been Celtic swirls all up her legs.

This Emma's legs were bare. Scarred and dirty, scabbed and cut…but bare.

“You're not Emma,” Wendy said slowly. She couldn't believe that she hadn't noticed it before. “You're not Emma. And Emma never calls me Winifred. I'm always Wendy to her.”

The redhead chuckled and straightened. “Maybe you're not such a hopeless case after all.” The robe slipped off her shoulders and Wendy looked away. From the neck down she—whoever she was—was nothing more than tendon and bone, yellow and white and red, her skeleton jangling in space with Emma's face perched above.

Wendy hauled back and punched her.

The skeleton stumbled left, falling over a stack of books and bringing down another stack crashing across her head and shoulders. There was a sickening crack and Wendy, moving faster than she thought possible, was in the faux-Emma's face in an instant, grabbing her by the hair and yanking her up so sharply she groaned.